The Federal Reserve Board has published an analysis of new questions in the 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances examining families’ informal financial and caregiving networks. It finds that 85.4% of U.S. families provide, receive or expect access to monetary, caregiving or emergency support through friends and relatives. These resources can affect families’ capacity to absorb shocks and suggest that balance sheet measures alone may understate economic inequality and financial vulnerability. Active exchanges of money or time covered 44.2% of families and varied little across the wealth distribution, although lower wealth families showed greater reciprocity and wealthier families were more often net providers. Emergency financial connections increased sharply with wealth, from about 60% of families in the bottom two wealth deciles to more than 90% in the top two. The analysis identifies 5.5% of families as high risk because they are in the bottom two wealth deciles and lack the measured forms of informal support. This group is disproportionately low income, young, non-college-educated, renting, Black or Hispanic.
Federal Reserve Board analysis finds 85.4% of US families use informal support networks
Federal Reserve Board analysis finds that 85.4% of U.S. families participate in informal financial or caregiving support networks. Emergency support is substantially more common among wealthier families, suggesting balance sheets alone understate inequality. Another 5.5% of families have both low wealth and no measured informal support network, placing them at heightened risk from financial shocks.